Latest / Your Hope-Filled Perspective with Dr. Michelle Bengtson podcast / How to Find Lasting Freedom from Addiction Through Christ

Transcript

How to Find Lasting Freedom from Addiction Through Christ · Your Hope-Filled Perspective with Dr. Michelle Bengtson podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Life Audio.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Welcome back to your hope filled perspective for part two
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: of our compelling conversation with John Seidel, author of Confessions
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: of a Christian Alcoholic, a candid conversation on drinking, addiction
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: and how to break free. If you missed part one,
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: I encourage you to go back and listen because John
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: vulnerably shared how he, as a Christian leader, found himself
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: entangled in the grip of alcohol addiction. In today's episode,
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: we're going to pick up right where we left off.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: We're going to dive deeper into John's road to recovery,
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  Speaker 2: what breaking free actually look like, and how others can
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  Speaker 2: find lasting hope for their own battles with addiction, shame,
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: and secrecy. John doesn't just tell a story of struggle,
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  Speaker 2: he gives us a roadmap for surrender, accountability, and freedom
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  Speaker 2: through Christ. Whether you're facing your own entanglement are walking
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: alongside someone who is, Today's episode is packed with truth, grace,
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: and the kind of hope that transforms lives. We're going
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: to dive right into part two after this brief word
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: from our sponsor. Welcome back to your hope filled perspective.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: I'm so excited because author John Seidel is back for
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: part two of our conversation. He's been telling stories his
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: whole life. He's written over ten thousand of them. First,
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: after helping start a successful news website. Then he was
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: editor in chief of a popular nonprofit I Am Second.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Now he's the author of this new book where he
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: shares vulnerably about his own struggle and how he found help, hope,
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: and healing. John, thank you for being willing to come
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: back for part two of our conversation.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, we'll do part three if we need to.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Just let me know we may need to because we
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: might need to go back John and delve into your
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: previous book on faith and mental health.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, right now.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: I really appreciated our conversation on the last episode and listeners,
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: you really need to go back and listen to that.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: But John, just super briefly, would you just recap what
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: led you to write this book.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. I like to say I'm the Christian that became
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: an alcoholic, not the other way around. And the church
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: is usually okay with and knows how to handle the
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: other way around the alcoholics who become Christians. But what
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: do you do with the Christians who become alcoholics or
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: the Christians who become adulterers, or the Christians who become addicts,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: the Christians who become belie miix, like, what do you
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: do with those people? Right? What I'm praying is that
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: this conversation opens up the eyes of people in the
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: church in general, Christians in general, to understand that we
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: are all on a journey of what I call messy sanctification.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, let's go there. Because you talked about how
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: salvation is a lifetime but sanctification is also a lifetime process.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Explain that, yeah, exactly. And so I think I have
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: my own podcast, Confessions of a Christian Alcoholic, and I
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: recently interviewed a pastor who had quote unquote fallen from
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: grace right, which, by the way, no one can fall
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: from grace. You know, that's the headline. Guess what you
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: can't fall from grace, God's grace. He was talking about
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: his his journey, and he said, I was two or
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: three years into pastor in the church when I first
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: realized that the Gospel is for Christians as well. We
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: think about the Gospel being to reach the quote unquote
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: lost right, and it is and it is good news. Right.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Gospel means good news but guess what, it's also for us.
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to be speaking at this this this Baptist
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  Speaker 1: church in Georgia, and the pastor wanted to interview me, right,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: which kudos to him, right, Like he was open to
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: me coming. But you know, hearing out this guy who
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: was on staff at a church and then became an alcoholic.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Like that's so he wanted to talk. And so we
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: start talking. We start talking about grace, and I mean,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: we're just like preaching at each other in a good way, right,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Like it's a sermon and we're just and he goes,
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  Speaker 1: you know, I used to be a youth minister, and
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: he said that I would tell these parents who are
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: concerned about their kids, and what would they become. I said,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: you know, for most of us who grew up in
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: the church. He said, well, for all of us really
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: who grew up in the church and then and then
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: become Christians at a young age. He goes, you will
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  Speaker 1: do most of your sinning after you become a Christian.
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  Speaker 1: I think about that, yes, Like I became a Christian
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  Speaker 1: at eight, like thirty thirty thirty one years of my
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: life I've been I've been sinning since i've since I've
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  Speaker 1: become a Christian, right, it's a lot more sins than
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: before I was a Christian. Right Obviously, then the Gospel,
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: the good News is for us as well, right, And
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: so this this sanctification, I think that the quote you
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: said is like salvation is a is a lifeline. Sanctification
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: is a lifetime. Right. It's that process of becoming more
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: like Jesus. And here's the thing. I think even some
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: people listening to were like, yeah, I'm all on board
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  Speaker 1: with sanctification. Okay, great, But it's also for the rapist
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: and the adulterer, and the murderer and the person and
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: when they when they repent, right Like, it's not just
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: for sister Betty who wants to be less angry. It's
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: not just for the person who struggles with road rage
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: and maybe they flip someone off on the way to church,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: right Like, it's for the big sins too. It's for
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: the messy sins as well. And I think that's where
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: the church needs to grow. And it starts by the way.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: It starts by each person realizing I didn't stop sinning
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  Speaker 1: when I became a Christian. And even though like people
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: will know that in their head, it's like, no, no,
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  Speaker 1: but really think about that for a second. You didn't
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: stop sinning. I say this, God only works through sinners,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: only works through sinners. There was one guy he worked
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: through that wasn't a sinner, Jesus. But other than that,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: he only works through sinners. We're all sinners. I have
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: a tattooed on my arm and it's a phrase from
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: the old desert church fathers and it says he today,
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  Speaker 1: I tomorrow. And the context, the story behind the phrase
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  Speaker 1: goes like this. There was an old monk in the
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: desert and one of the young monks come to comes
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: to him and says, father, did you hear? What did
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: you hear? What happened with brother Lawrence and what he did?
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: And he details what happened and how he fell away,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: And the old desert father looks at the young monk
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  Speaker 1: and he says, he today, I tomorrow. And it's just
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: like that could be me, that could be me, Like
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: we're all one stupid decision, right, And you're like, no,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: I could never do that. And it's like no one
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  Speaker 1: wakes up one day and says, Okay, I'm gonna cheat
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: on my wife right right, Like it's made in the hundreds,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: the thousands of decisions that lead up to that point,
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  Speaker 1: and you don't know what decision is going to be
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: the tipping point, the severing of your soul that happens
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: because you just it's just one little step, one little step,
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  Speaker 1: one little step, and all of a sudden, you do
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  Speaker 1: wake up on May May twenty seventh, twenty twenty three,
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  Speaker 1: and you're waiting in your own feces. I didn't wake
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  Speaker 1: up that day thinking that was gonna happen. I didn't
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: wake up that day thinking that was gonna be on
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: my rock bottom. I didn't wake up thinking that was
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: gonna be the last time I drank Newslash. It wasn't right,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: but because the world to recover is paved in relapsed,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: But but I didn't. I didn't wake up thinking I
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: was going to make the commitment that day. And so
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: I think we have to embrace this idea of messy
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: senttification and it's it's it's for the little sins, but
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: it's for the big sins as well.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, in one of your previous books, Finding Rest and
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: by the way, friends, we will put all the information
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: about John, his ministry, all of his books, his podcast
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: in the show notes that you can find at doctor
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: michelle b dot com. But John, in Finding Rest, you
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: were very open about struggling with OCD and anxiety. But
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: I'm curious how those traits affected your drinking habits.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I kind of of view. Let me say this there.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: I had a I had a big fear when God
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: told me to write the book about when God told
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: me to write Confessions, I literally said, hell, no, no,
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  Speaker 1: I'm not doing that.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, I've been there when God asked us to write
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: a book. Yeah, I've been there because we know where
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: we're going to be tried even after we write the book.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: One hundred hundred percent, I'm like, this is embarrassing. It's
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: I have a lot to lose, right. I went back
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: and looked at the contract for my first book. I'm like, man,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: that morality clause is pretty tight, you know, and I
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: just I didn't. I didn't want to write it. Part
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: of why I didn't want to write it is because
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: one of my greatest fears has been and I would
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: say still is like I still bring this to the Lord. Michelle.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Like even like when you opened up the podcast and
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: you're like, yeah, we have to have them on you know,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: maybe talk about your first book. There's just a little
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: tinge in my soul because I feel like I've let
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: so many people down right. I feel like, will people
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: look at that and say, well, well, he said all
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: this stuff, and he's talking about all this stuff, and
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: then he becomes a Christian, Like then he becomes a
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Christian alcoholic. Why should we Why should we consider what
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: he said before that? Right? And but what I have
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: come to realize is that my story, at least up
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: to this point, is a two part story. Maybe it'll
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: be three parts. I don't know, four or five, six,
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: But right now it's a two part story. And part
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: one is Finding Rest. Part one is is battling the anxiety,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: you know, like what it looks like to be a
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Christian that battles anxiety and OCD. And what I would
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: say is everything in that book is true. In fact,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: I even I even mentioned in Finding Rest that I
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: have to watch my drinking. Now. After that book came out,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: I was watching it all right, like I was watching
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: it go up and then go down my throat, you
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: know what I mean? Yeah, I knew the truth, and
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: that is true. But I think it was everything in
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: that book and what I talk about battling anxiety and
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: OCD and all the tools that I had to combat
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: it at that point, all of that was true, and
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: it just didn't make room. And I should say it
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: actually did make room. Chapter eight is called an Ongoing Battle. Right.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: But all those tools and all the stuff I talk
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: about about battling anxiety and OCD in that book, for
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: that period in my life that I was in, for
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: all the hardship and all the death and everything that
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: I experienced up until that point, it was good for that. Right.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: What I didn't realize is I was gonna then enter
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: and even tougher. I I just I thought like I'd
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: battled the hardest thing I was going to battle, and
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: this is but when I got to what then became
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: the hardest part of my life, when it became even
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: more than I could have ever imagined. Right again, all
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: the tools that I talk about and finding rest about
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: battling and anxiety in and OCD would have worked. They
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: absolutely would have worked. They just they just weren't the
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: easy way, right. And I think when I hit that
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: really hard the hardest part of my life is the
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: devil really ramped up. He because I had these unexplored
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: traumas in my life, these unexplored parts of myself. I
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: love talking about this, this type of therapy called IFS
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Internal Family Systems, and the shortest parts work, and the
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: short is like if you've seen the movie Inside Out
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: from Disney, Like basically there's just there's parts of us, right,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: not not multiple personality disorder, right, but but just like
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: we're made up of complex parts. And so they are
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: just parts of myself that I had never that i'd hid,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: that I'd put in a dungeon and locked away and
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: said those don't exist, right, And then if they ever
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: start screaming, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna beat them
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: until they be quiet, right, And yeah, right, Well, here's
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: the funny thing. It's silenced them. But what I didn't
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: realize is I'm beating parts of myself and those parts
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: are in pain, yes, novel right, Oh my gosh. You
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: can beat parts of yourself into submission, you can beat
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: them into silence, but guess what you're doing. You're only
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: hurting yourself, right, because they're parts of you. Right. And
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: so for me, the anxiety and the OCD, which was
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: under control and was being dealt with. And even though
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: I knew ongoing battle like it the devil, the devil
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: just found those things. He's like, Oh, you're doing well.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: You think you're doing well. Ah, watch this right. And
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: I just wasn't prepared for it. Thought I was, but
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: wasn't because I hadn't gotten to the root even of
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: some of those big things.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Oh, I can so relate. After writing my book Breaking
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: Anxiety Scrip, it was like the enemy came after, like,
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: do you really believe what you just wrote? Yeah, let's
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: test that. Yeah, And I really had to go back
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: to do I really believe what I've told my readers?
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: And am I gonna stand firm on it? And what
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: else lies beneath that hadn't previously been on earth that
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: I need to deal with?
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: Mmm?
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the enemy doesn't play fair. We have to
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: be really careful what books we choose to write well.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: And that's why even now in this one, I say like,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: I'm coming into it much more realistic. So even though
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: I talk about getting to the root of my drinking,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: I'm much more wise now to know that it's not
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: just the things I've already identified, right, Like there are
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: still things that are popping up right, Like I went
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: to my therapist yesterday, right, because man, I'm encountering something.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: I know this is a popular buzzword, but I think
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: it's actually this is the right context for it. I'm
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: finding myself triggered like something like my life is seeing
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: something very innocuous and I'm like literally going into fighter
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: flight mode, Like what is that?
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: Like?
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Why? I mean that was? I know in my prefrontal
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: cortex that I shouldn't be going into fighter flight mode.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: But my amigdala is throwing you into fighter flight mode?
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: What is going on? Well, that's a new thing that
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: didn't come up in the first year of my sobriety
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: and rooting out.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: In a way, aren't you glad? John? Because the way
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: I talk to my patients and my listeners and my
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: viewers is like healing is like an onion, and God
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: helps heal the outside layer and lets us live in
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: that healing for a little bit, and then at time
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: he'll like, Okay, it's time to peel back the next layer.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: And then it's time to peel back the next layer.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: Aren't you kind of glad that you didn't have to
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: go to the root of all these shoes all at once.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, God is gentle and gracious that way. But
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: like you say, sanctification is for a lifetime, and I
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: think healing is for a lifetime.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Oh it's such a good point. I'd never had put
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: it in the terms of like, how gracious of God
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: not to allow us to go through all that? Right?
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: But yes, I mean it's like a doll up of
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: whipped cream is great, but if you were to eat
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: a whole tub, you know, like that would not be good. Right.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: So there's a there's a guy, David Paulson, who's a
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: really famous biblical counselor, and I quote him in the
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: book because he says, man, I'm sure I'm gonna butcher this,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: but his point is it's just like God to allow
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: us for he was talking about sanctification, for sanctification to
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: be focused on basically one thing at a time.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And and.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: So you go through this thing and you root that out,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: and then you go on to the next thing and
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: then so it's exactly what I just I love that
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: framing it as that's actually a gift, the graciousness of God.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: That's I'm so grateful, so grateful because each layer feels
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: so painful in and of itself. Yeah, we've talked us
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: for a moment about how and why is alcoholism more
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: than just how much you drink?
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And so I think we skimmed this a little
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: bit in last week's episode, and so I'm glad we're
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: coming back to this. I think there's a phrase that
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: I said in last week that that that I just
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: think is so important. It's not going to be the
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Hope Field nugget at the end, but it is like
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: that if if you take away some phrase or something
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: that you can just like burn into your brain. It's
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: this idea of misordered is disordered? Does quantity play a role?
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Absolutely right, it does. But I told that story last
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: week of the suburban mom teacher of the year, right,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: who just needed to have her two glasses of wine
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: a week, was not getting drunk, and yet she realized
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: the place it was occupying in her life, what it
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: was doing if she didn't have it, Not necessarily the
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: physical cravings, but the mental aspect of I just need
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: to I and I can online without this, right, And
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: and she's like, I was addicted to it. And I
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: think if we if we embrace that mindset and by
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: the way, not many people do like I've had I had.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: I had one person who read it early goptany of
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: the book, and I literally had to stop myself from
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: chuckling because they go I said, hey, you know, what's
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: your feedback, and they said, you know it's good. But
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: you know, for a moment, you almost had me convinced
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: that I was an alcoholic because I started thinking about,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: you know, the way that I treat alcohol and the
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: way I drink it. But but then I realized, no,
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: I don't drink that much. And I'm like, don't feel
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: the Holy Spirit? Chron don't feel spirit? Oh. Like I
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: was like, you know what, this guy he's gonna be like,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: I'm just I'm just gonna yep, okay, okay. And because
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: here's the reality. You can drink more than me and
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: not being alcoholic. You can drink less than me and
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: being alcoholic. Right again, is quantity an indicator? Yes, it
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: is not the only indicator. Right. And so I was
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: talking to a wife. I had given a speech at
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: this this business luncheon and she came up to me
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: afterwards and she goes, my husband's my husband's alcoholic. He doesn't,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: he doesn't know it, though he won't admit it. I said, okay,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: like what does it look like? And she said, once
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: a year he goes basically on a bender and he
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: will just go a weekend, he'll go away and he
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: will just drink and drink and drink and drink. He's
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: got a really stressful job. He can't drink during the week.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: He can't drink at other times during the year. I
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: mean he can have like a he can have like
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: he'll have like a glass of wine. He's responsible. But
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: she says, you know that he looks forward to that weekend.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, it is like it is like his release.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: It is it is it is he orients his life
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: around that weekend when he can just go and and
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: just let go. And so, I don't know if you've
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: ever seen the movies The Purge, right, it's these horror
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: movies right where the concept is society's become so depraved
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: that what they've said is once a year, for one weekend,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: you can kill anyone you want and get it out
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: of your system, and it becomes this cult like thing.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Now would you say, well, those people don't have a problem,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: they're only doing it once a year. No, you'd be
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: like they got issues, and so again, this guy can
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: responsibly drink throughout the year, but his mindset is this
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: is the thing that's giving me relief. This is the
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: thing that's giving me release. It's not Jesus, it's not
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: my faith, it is this And just because it comes
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: once a year doesn't mean he doesn't have a problem, right,
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: you know. And it's like, that's what I want people
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: to hear and see and understand. Right, anything, anything you
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: would have treated that way, I'm only going to binge
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: and purge one weekend out of the year.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: Okay, maybe your esophagus is a little bit better, right,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: but like you still have a heart issue. There's still
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: something going on that you haven't dealt with. And that's
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: why I want That's why I said this last week.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: I don't want you to just be sober, like I'm
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: grateful that you're sober, right, I want you to be here,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: especially if you're drinking. It's so destructive, like it's killing you,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Like I want you to be here, So please get sober, right,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: but don't stop there, right, because there's something better for you.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: There's something better waiting for you than just sobriety. I'm
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: going to speak in a few weeks, and there's supposed
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: to be a lot of people from recovery and treatment centers,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: and one of the questions that I'm going to ask
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: them is this, how many of you know miserable sober people?
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: And I can tell you that every hand that in
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: that room should probably go up. Now, do you know
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: miserable Christians? Yes, but but we know that if you're
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: a miserable Christian, something's wrong, something's off. There's a remedy.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: If you're a miserable sober person, what do all the
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: programs tell you, Well, you're doing great, like you've nailed it,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: You're awesome. Just keep going, just keep going, just stay sober.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: You've reached the pinnacle. And it's like, no, miserable Christians
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: know they haven't reached the pinnacle. Like something's off, something's wrong.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: They need to shoot for more of Jesus. Miserable sober
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: people are told you're good, you're good, so like the
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: goal isn't sobriety. So that's why, coming all the way
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: back around, that's why I can't just be about quantity, right,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: It can't just be about quantity.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: It's really got to go back to heart change. Friends,
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: We're going to take a short break for a brief
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: word from our sponsor, but I want you to stick
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: with us because John's going to share more about how
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: we can practically break free from hidden addictions. We'll be
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: right back John. When you started looking at the how
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: and why of your addiction, you uncovered four layers. Briefly,
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: what are those?
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Well, I'll start with the first one. There's the physical layer.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: That physical layer is the that's the one that most
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: people just know. It's the cravings, it's the proclivities, it's
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: the it's in my family tree. Right from the physical layer,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: you go to the cultural layer. And this is one
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: that like that's interesting. Like people would be like, well,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: what do you mean, And I would say, you watched
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: a Super Bowl ad lately? Right it is. It is
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: being fed to us so so much that drinking has
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: to be has to accompany anything in life where it's
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: it needs to be there for you for your sporting event,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: it needs to be there for you for your night out,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: it needs to be there for you after work. Right
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: like culture is telling us, like the alcohol industry is
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: huge recently, actually, a Gallup poll came out though that
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: said drinking is at an all time low, and I
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: think a lot of people cell it and I'm and
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm grateful for that, right, like we need
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: to celebrate that. But you know that drinking was also
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: at an all time low, like I think it was
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: like nineteen eighty nine, right, Like it goes up and down, right,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: And so it's not like it's not like they started
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: they started taking this data in nineteen seventy. It's spikes
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one or or they started in nineteen
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: seventy and it's just been going down every like. No,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: it's just it's literally just like a you know, a
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: mountain range.
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: Ye.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: So my point is, let's celebrate it, right, but let's
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: not rest on our laurels, because culture like is gonna
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: be out there. The alcohol industry has stuck around through
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: a lot of all time lows. Let me put that
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: and guess what, They even survived an amendment to the Constitution.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: You know, like, the alcohol industry will survive, and they're
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: gonna find ways to make it even cooler and look
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: better and get over all the issues that people and
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: concerns about health even cigarettes, right, there's all these issues
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: about cigarettes. How many people still I mean, it's less sure,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: but tons of people are still dying of lung cancer
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: from cigarettes. Until it's zero, I'm gonna still be saying
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: what I'm gonna be saying. Yeah, the third layer is
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna say it's kind of the spiritual layer.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: And within the spiritual layer, is this sort of what
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: I call cognitive dissonance? And how does this happen? That's
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: a question that haunted me for a long time. Like
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: it's not just like it's a question I asked myself
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: for a long time, how does this happen? Right? And
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: so these layers are part of answering that that that question.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: And there's a spiritual aspect to this that takes on
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: several different forms. There's the spiritual warfare aspect, right. You
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: alluded to that when your when your book came out,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: and that's true. I grew up in a very charismatic
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Pentecostal denomination, got to like got away from that, joined
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: a different denomination. And I think because because there was
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: a lot of hurt that was done to me in
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: that in that denomination growing up, I just wanted to
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: wall off anything right, leave the bad, and then if
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: there was anything good in there, like, leave that too.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: And I think one of the bat one of the
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: things I left for many years was just an appreciation
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: for the reality of spiritual warfare because that was used.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: It was like it was like, you get a bad
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: parking spot, spiritual warfare, you know exactly. I just don't
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: think that's really true. Or something bad happens to you
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: and you're like, well, yeah, you got sick because you
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: ate seven pounds of turkey on Thanksgiving, Like, I don't
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: think that's spiritual warfare. I think that's esophageal warfare. And
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: so coming to that understanding though that like, no, that's real, right.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: I also think that I've talked about this thing called
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: cognitive dissonance, and we live as creatures in this fallen
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: and broken world where we can know, where we can understand,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: where we can have the knowledge, just not act on it.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: And I think that that's true in a lot of
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: aspects of our lives. It was especially true for me
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: in this aspect of my life. So I knew what
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: the Bible says about getting drunk. I knew what I
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: was supposed to be doing, and that there's just this
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: cognitive dissonance that says puts that in a corner and
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: it's own box or whatever, just uses justifications or or whatnot.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: And and I think the best way I describe it is, well,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: I'll use I'll use the words of Jesus actually in Revelation,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: which you know, everyone's like, what a w I keep it.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: But in the beginning of Revelation there's it's in the
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: end it's a letter to seven churches, and one of
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: the church is the Church. In ephesis, Jesus talks about
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: the church and he's like, you know, you guys have
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: all the right theology, you have all the right doctrine,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: you're technically doing all the right things, but really you've
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: abandoned your first love. You've abandoned me. And I think
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: that's the best explanation for me in that aspect of
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: the spiritual layer, which is I had all the right knowledge.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: I was on staff at a church. I could counsel
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: people and give them wisdom in certain things. But I
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: had just abandoned that love and that desire to cultivate
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: an experiential relationship with Jesus. Now this is not experientialism.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: I think that's you know that, that's when you basically
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: you say that that you can only experience Jesus if
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: it's something, if it makes you feel no, no, no,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: But there is an aspect of like you have to
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: cultivate an experiential relationship with Jesus. So that's a spiritual layer.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: And then there's there's kind of this which which there's
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: really this this kind of trauma layer. And so when
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: I ask how does this happen, listen, and there was
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: there was these things that happened to me as as
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: a child and through my young my young life that
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: I just didn't know what to do with, and then
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: as an adult, I just didn't want to deal with them.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: I didn't want to revisit them. And I think for
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: for a lot of us. You look at this and
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: maybe there's people listening and it's like, man, they're saying,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: everyone has trauma now these days, and I'm like, yeah, maybe,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: like when I look at trauma and if I really
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: look at what that is, brokenness, right, it's rupture, it's sin, right,
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, yeah, I think to a degree, everyone
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: does have trauma. Now, there's a difference between big T
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: trauma and lower t trauma, right, the big Tree, scial
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: cults and you know, like all that, yes, right, But
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of people who don't want
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: to admit and maybe even some people who think it's disrespectful.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: My parents did the best they could. Yes, you know what,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: I'm doing the best I can with my kids, and
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: I'm causing them drama, Like there are things that they
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: I hope that they come to me at twenty one
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: and say, Dad, you did when you reacted this way?
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: It did this to me. Of course it did. Of
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: course it did. And I am a sinner and I
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: am so sorry. How can we heal that. It's not
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: about if you're going to rupture the relationship, it's if
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: you're going to repair it and how you repair it, right?
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: And so I think there's a lot of people who,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: again for a variety of reagency, either don't want to
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: deal with it. They don't want to I don't want
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: to talk to the Bible says to honor my parents.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: I can't talk, you know, I can't say that. And
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: I'm like, silence is not honor, by the way, silence
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: is not honor. And if you are Bible talks about
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: these generational curses. And I talk about this a little
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: bit in the book about how like that's not as
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: I read that, it's not the Lord saying I am
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: going to do X, Y and Z, it's him saying
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: this is how it is. Right. If you don't interrupt patterns,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: they go to the third and fourth generations, right Like,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: if you don't go and try to heal, these things
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: keep going. Right. Yes, those are the layers in my
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: life that I had to peel back and go through
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: and am still going through.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: And I think your point that we've got to interrupt
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: those patterns is crucial. I remember as a clinical neuropsychologist
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: and being in the throes of a severe bout of depression,
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: and the one thing that motivated me to keep going
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: is that I wanted it to stop with my generation
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: because I had seen it in generation after generation before me,
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: and I wanted to figure out how do we get
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: to the root and stop this. I don't want my
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: kids to have to go through that or worse, but
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: it really requires going into that painful place. Like we
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: talked about on last week's episode, healing is a journey
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: through highs and lows, and it can be pretty painful,
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: but I'm grateful for the Lord's graciousness and how much
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: he lets us handle it one time. But John, I
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: really think there is so much stigma still around mental
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: health issues, whether we're talking depression or anxiety or OCD
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: or addiction alcohol or other kinds of addiction. And I
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: still hear comments like true Christians can't fall into addiction.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: What would you say to that, Oh, maybe that's episode that. No.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: Right, That, by the way, is why we were having
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: this conversation, why we didn't limit it to part one,
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: because I think we have to talk about it because
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: there are other John's and other Michelles that are out
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: there struggling who don't want to confess because of those
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: kinds of comments.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's not that I'm trying to figure out
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: what to say, it's what I'm trying to figure out
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: what not to say, because I've been told that right.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: In fact, i'd written an earlier copy of the first
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: draft of the book. I'd sent it out to some people,
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: and one person got back to me and said, I
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: don't paraphrase in here. I don't doubt that you're a
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: Christian now obviously, or it's not work. But what I'm
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: unsure of is if you were a Christian before, because
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: the Bible says that Christians can't go on sinny. And
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: so here's what's interesting this is, this is one of
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: the reasons I went to seminary Michelle, like, I wanted
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: to study these things. I wanted to have a response
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: because that just doesn't you know, Initially, I'm like, that
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: just doesn't feel right. But now I want to put
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: scripture in theology into why that doesn't feel right? Yeah,
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: I start to answer that question. I think a lot
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: of people answer that question. They say, well, that just
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: means if you are engaging in an on an ongoing
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: sin and it's unrepentant for X, Y and z. Better
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: but still not good. Here's why how long? Right? Like?
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: What if someone is in unrepentant ongoing sin, Like is
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: a week? Okay? What about two years? What about ten years?
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: What about twenty years? We by going to that answer, well,
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: it just means unrepentant sin for a period of time.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: Who gets to define that period of time? Right, right?
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: And so we got to be careful there, right, And
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: so that person who who who finds Jesus right and
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: then falls into sin? I would also ask what sins
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: qualify as ongoing sin, because I know a lot of
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: people who aren't alcoholics, but man, they have bouts of anger,
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: their elders at their church, their deacons at their church.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: They come home and they're not quote unquote abusive in
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: the traditional term. They're not. They're not physically abusive, but man,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: they are they are. They get angry with their kids
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: and they just let them have it. It's a sin
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: to lose control right of your temper and your anger
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: like that. Well, that's that's different, is it? Right? Because
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: I think of what a lot of people who read
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: those verses and their first John is a good example
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: of where they are, of where some of them are,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: they say. It really ends up being if you're caught
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: in sin for however long I think it is not
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: okay to be caught in sin, and for whatever sin
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: that I think is not okay to be part of right.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: And so with each person it changes. For some people
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: that's a year and that's alcohol. For some people that's
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: two years and it's this sin. Right. My point is this,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: as I've gone through seminary, I can't fully answer the
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: question for how long you can be caught in sin
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: before you quote unquote, are you know, well you were
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: never a Christian? I don't know, right, I don't. Here's
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: what I do know, though, I was caught in sin.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: And I would say, you know, like I said, my
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: relationship with alcohol was on and off and it was
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: always misordered, disordered. Right, But if you want to look
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: at okay, there was a there was a year and
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: a half where it was a severe slide. Right, So
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: let's just call it, let's just call it for argument's sake,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: that that was like that year and a half. Here's
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: what I know. I couldn't stay there. I didn't stay there, right,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: Like the whole point was the Holy Spirit was working
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: on me. Right, he did call me out of that.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: So just because it took a year and a half,
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: isn't that actually a sign that I was a Christian?
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: Like the Holy Spirit eating at me. And there were
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: times that would pop up, and yes, I would drink
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: it away. And then finally on the beach in Miami,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: it clicked. It finally got through. And for some people
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: that's a week and for some people it's ten years,
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: and for me it was a year and a half.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: And so I think we have we get so dogmatic
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: about certain passages and like what I'm saying is like
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: theologically correct, trust me, I've studied it. And yet people
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: are they just they get these these these forms, these denominations,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: these whatever that are just that are wrapped up in
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: what is actually and taking two church history classes, it's
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: actually wrapped up in like this Old Piety movement around
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: around the seventeenth eighteenth century, and it says that there's
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: kind of two levels of salvation. There's your initial conversion
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: and then there's like a second blessing, a second act
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: of grace. It's just like if you look at like
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: Orthodox Christianity, that's not true. Right, You're saved and you've
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: accepted Jesus, and by God's grace, his Holy Spirit has
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: been working on me ever since. Yeah.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: I mean I think of Paul. Wasn't it Paul in
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: the New Testament who said why do I keep doing
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: the things I don't want to do?
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Absolutely? Roman seven, yes, yes.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: And that's why when we started off this episode, I
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: thought it was so important to talk about that big
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: word sanctification, because it is the daily working out our
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: salvation and dying to self. It's a moment by moment,
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: thought by thought, decision by decision process, and some days
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: we're gonna feel like we nail it, and some years
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: we're gonna go what happened there? But the Holy Spirit
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: is still working and willing to help us become more
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: like our savior.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: There's a famous quote from John Owen, and he says,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: be killing sin, or sin will be killing you. And
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: now here's the thing. You will never run out of
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: sins to kill, right question. And here's the thing. I
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: there's evidences of grace in my life throughout my life,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: and evidences of salvation because there are other sins that
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: I killed along the way. And now my sinful heart
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: use that. Well, you've killed this in, you've killed this in.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: It's okay to have that one. It's not that bad.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: That's the sin nature, right, But there's evidences of that
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: in my own life, and I think I hope people
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: will see. On one hand, I don't want you to
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: minimize what you're doing, but I also don't want you
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: to give it too much power. I don't want you
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: to say I can't come back from that. This is
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: a big one and there's no room for me at
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: the altar, and I would say, come because I'm right
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: there with you.
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: But that's what the enemy wants us to believe. This
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: is too big. What would other people think? Who cares
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: what other people would think. God is beckoning us, by
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: the power of the Holy Spirit to come to him.
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: He knows about it anyway. Yeah, absolutely, And we're gonna
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: take a real short break and then we're gonna come
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: back to hear John's Hope Field perspective about how Christians
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: can find help and healing. We'll be right back after
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: this word from our sponsor. Okay, John, there's a couple
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: things that we need to talk about briefly as we
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: wrap up this episode. Readers, I want you to pick
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: up John's book, Confessions of a Christian Alcoholic. It's not
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: just about struggling with alcohol. It's about our sin nature
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: and how do we come to a place where we
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: can bring that into the light and heal from it.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: But John, I know that you went through a four
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: step spiritual process that you found was key to break
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: free from your addiction. We just give us a taste
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: of that.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I say the book is part memoir
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: park guide, and so the first half really is my story.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: And then the second half is I want to be practical.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: I want to let take people on the journey of
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: my story within a journey to healing. And so these
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: fourth step we talked a little bit in last week's
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: episode about AA and other twelve step programs. I'm not
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: trying to replace. Like, if that's if that's what you
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: want to do, is a twelve step program, I'm not
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: trying to replace it now. I think you should do
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: a Christian version at minimum of a twelve step program.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: If whatever program or whatever path you take to recover
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: is a foundation, these steps are bedrock. They are what
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: a foundation is drilled into. Okay, And you know how
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: I know these steps work because they can't not. Once
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: you hear them, anything you do here it's not going
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: to hurt you. I can guarantee you that. So the
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: four steps real quickly. It starts with abiding in Christ.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: I think for a lot of my life, having grown
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: up in the church, it's like, like, you know, you
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: get these kind of trite phrases and whatnot. And what
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: I can tell you is that when I get to
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: got to the end of my rope, you realize that
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: you realize how precious Jesus is when he's all you
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: have to cling onto. Yes, right, and when my time
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: in the morning that I spend with him and maybe
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: years can be the afternoon. It's the walk, it's a run,
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: it's a whatever. It doesn't have to look like mine,
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: but do it right. And what I would say is
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: this is the only step that has to be done first.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: All the other step you want to do, Step four,
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: step three, you'll hear like they're kind of you just
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: do them all the time, But it has to start
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: with still you have to spend time with Jesus. Step
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: number two is finding your true identity. And I'm not
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: just talking about your identity as a child of God,
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: that's your general identity. What I'm talking about is find
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: that specific thing that He has called you to, that
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: he has wired you to do, that he's given you
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: the gifts to do. I think so many of us
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: try to drown out the noise of the world because
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: we're not operating out of our true identity. We're swimming upstream,
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: and yeah, you get tired and you just want to
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: escape from that. But man, maybe if you were swimming
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: with the current and operating out of what you were
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: supposed to be doing you wouldn't be so burned out
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: and tired. And so there's a great book I talk
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: about in the book and it's called Living Fearless by
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: a guy named Jamie Winship. That really helped me find
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: my true identity. The third one is radical vulnerability. That
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: adjective there is really important. See, we're okay with talking
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: about vulnerability. I think it's become kind of in vogue lately.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna be vulnerable and I'm gonna open up and
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: I use this example. I said, you know, especially the
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: men listening, you've all sat in a guys group where
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: you've gone around the circle and everyone's like, yeah, I've
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: been struggling with lust this week. Ah, brother yes, yes, ah,
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: thank you for being so honest. Right, and then you
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: just kind of go and you say, okay, we'll be
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: praying for you again. But really, brother Bob was honest.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: Like he's looking at porn. He looked at it this morning,
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: he's planning on doing it again tonight. He's got a
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: secret you know phone, he's got a secret account, he's
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: got a secret whatever. Right, But Brother Bob assuages his
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: conscience and says, I'm being vulnerable I'm being open. I
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: told him I was struggling with lust. But if he
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: was radically vulnerable and actually said exactly what he was
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: going through and doing, well, then guess what then you
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: have to kill it then, like dragging it into the
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: light and shining a light on it. Right, Well, then
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: those guys are gonna be like, oh, okay, well, let's
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: get that second phone, let's take that away, let's let's
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: go on those accounts. Let's but no, you don't want
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: to do that. You just want to be vulnerable and
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: say I'm struggling with lust. All of us do this.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: I did this. I was leading a home group. I
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: was leading a church home group during during during the
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: severe slide period, and I was being vulnerable in areas.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: But I had that, then I'm just not going to
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: be radically vulnerable in this one. Hey, guys, I had
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: a little too much to drink last night. Did anything happen? No? Well,
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: that's true. I didn't do anything quote unquote stupid. I
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: didn't hit my wife, I didn't hit my kids. I
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: didn't go drive. No, No, I didn't do anything stupid.
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: Is that true? That's true? But what if I was
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: radically vulnerable guys, I actually had seven beers and I
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: don't remember the second half of the night. Oh that's
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: a little bit more than you just had. That's a
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: little bit different than you just had a little too
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: much to drink last night. Nothing happened, right. Final is obedience.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: Final step is obedience. It's a dirty word in culture today,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: especially when you talk about obedience to God. Right. And
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: yet what I have found is you want to the
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: abiding aspect. You'll learn how when you abide how much
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: more you have to trust God? Right? Like you're like, ooh,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: I am not trusting him in this situation. And you
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: know what is a great way to trust the Lord
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: is to be obedient to him. You don't obey what
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: you don't trust, you know. And so if you're having
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: a if you're having trouble obeying God, and so people
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: are like, well how do I like, where do you
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: where do you get these acts of obedience? And I say, well,
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: Scripture one, right, there's these general things, right, and then
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: you're going to hear it in your abiding time. And
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: if you're struggling with that, start going to his word
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: and figuring out how do I trust him more? How
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: do I meditate? On the scriptures that talk about trusting
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: the Lord, and how do I bury that into my soul?
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: Because what I have found is that in being obedient
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: to the Lord. Again I talk about that most flourishing
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: and fulfilled life, the most flourishing, fulfilled life that I
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: have found. He's being obedient. And sometimes here's the funny thing.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: The Lord puts something in my heart to do, to
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: send an email, to talk to someone, to do something,
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: and I'll be like, okay, I can see how like
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: if I send that email and tell that, you know,
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: like okay, like that'd be great if that worked out.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: And then that happened, and like nine times out of ten,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: the thing that I'm like, oh, I'm sending this email
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: because he wants me to get this job and that
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: would be great, you know, it's like and the job
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: doesn't pan out, and I'm like, what the heck? Lord?
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: You told me to send that email to tell them that, like, hey,
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: I'm available, let's let's make that happen. And that didn't
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: What what the heck? Lord? And He's like, I just
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: wanted you to practice. I just wanted you to practice.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: And now you're closer to me, right, Like it's not.
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: The obedience is not just for the outcome that you
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: think or want it to be right. And so by
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: practicing those four steps and continually continually practicing those steps
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: every day, right, I can tell you that you will
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: you you will find freedom you can't not. And people
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: are like, wow, that's a bold statement. Yeah, Like, think
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: about abiding with Christ, finding your true identity, practicing radical vulnerability,
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: and being obedient to God. If you truly do those
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: four things, think about that, you're the things that you're
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: feeling slaved to. I'm not saying they'll be kicked. And
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: it's miraculously like I still have a desire to drink
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: at times because I still have a desire to escape,
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: because I still live in a fallen and broken world
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: where the desires of my heart will never fully and
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: completely be cleansed and cleaned and what they should be.
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: I can tell you by following those four steps, I
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: kicked alcohol. I found sobriety, but most importantly, I found
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: more of Jesus. And I can't overstate what that has
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: done in my life.
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: You're going right where I have to ask, and you've
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: hinted to it in other ways. How has your life
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: changed since finding sobriety. Has there been anything in particular
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: that has surprised you on.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: Two stages, I would say what surprised me at first
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: was how miserable I was. People are like, whoh, don't
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: make it sound so enticing you.
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: No.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: I I jacked my physical body up, I jacked my
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: mental body up. I jacked my emotional body up. But
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: that's part of the process too, right, because I had
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: because alcohol becomes such a crutch in my life, I
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: didn't know how to sit with myself anymore. Yeah, I
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: didn't know how to spend time with my kids. I
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: didn't know what to have how to have a conversation
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: with my wife. So initially, when you take that away,
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: it's miserable. Yeah, And I don't know how long your
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: miserable will be. Maybe it's a day, maybe it's a week,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: maybe it's a year. I don't know. But my but
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: but then once I got through that period and and
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: figured out how to have a conversation with my wife,
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: how to sit with the uncomfortable emotions, how to have
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: fun with my kids, I began enjoying things to a
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: degree that I never was able to before. I think
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: I joked last week that I had like more pictures
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: on my phone of clouds and birds and whatnot. And
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: it's like it got to the point where like I
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: could taste colors, Like wait what, I'm like, Yeah, I
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: could taste colors like it. It just my senses physically,
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: emotionally and spiritually were awaken and the brain power that
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: I got back, and now I'm like, well, I've accessed
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: parts of my brain, which is actually scientifically true, Like
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: you'd numb these parts of your of your brain when
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: you're when you're drinking the way that I was drinking, right,
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: or just when you're making an idol out of anything,
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: you're making an idle love. When I got sober, I
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: was able to enjoy my family in a new, better way.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: I was able to use parts of my brain. And
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: I would say, actually that I've found out who I
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: really am for like the first time in my adult life.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: Because even though, like I said, there was that year
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: and a half of really severe drinking, it was before
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: that alcohol was still a crutched right, maybe it wasn't
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: as bad as it was, but going back to last week,
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: I was still on the spectrum. I was still on
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: the spectrum from twenty one from twenty one on right,
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: I was still on the spectrum and so now I
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: feel like I've found I've found who I really am.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: Sometimes that's scary, and that's why I go to therapy. Still,
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: if a.
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: Listener, review or is really resonating with our conversation, maybe
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: they see themselves in some part of your story, or
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: they have a friend or a loved one that they
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: recognize as struggling with a secret addiction. What hope Field
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: perspective do you want to leave them with this week?
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: I kind of alluded to this and I say it.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: I think there's a there's a lot of maybe sobriety
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: books or you know, they call it quit lit quit
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: lit in this genre, and I want to be real
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: with you. Here's the Hopefield perspective is it's going to
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: be hard, but it's going to be good. And there's
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: a lot of people who give up on pursuing Jesus,
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: pursuing sobriety, which again, remember pursued Jesus. He gives sobriety
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: thrown in because it's hard. It's it's it's harder than
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: they thought it was going to be. What I can
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: tell you is that the suffering, and I can truly
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: use that word is there's been suffering last week and
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: a little bit this week. I said, I wrote Finding Rest,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: I'd encountered the hardest part of my life. I wrote
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: that book. Then I encounter, well, never mind, the real
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: hardest part of my life, and then I become an alcoholic,
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: and then I write this book. Well, what, by the way,
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: over the last year and a half, it's actually been
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: the hardest part of my life. My wife has been
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: diagnosed with chronic illnesses. You just had a major surgery
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: it hysterectomy last week, and we are walking through this
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: world of chronic illness. And didn't see that coming. I
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: gave up my job to go to seminary full time
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: because God called me to. Newsflash, that was one of
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: my acts of obedience. Right, not only am I not
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: contributing to my family's bottom line, but I am like
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: drawing from it to pay for seminary. Like it's hard.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: You want to talk about sitting with yourself and the
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: enemy using words to say what a failure you are.
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: You're being so selfish You're going to seminary and your
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: wife's working to pay the bill, Like what, who are you,
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: You're not a man I'm in now what I would
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: say is the hardest part of my life. And yet,
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: and I don't say this tritly because I know there's
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: probably people who've grown up in the church listening to
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: this and it's hard. There truly is a peace set
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: surpasses understanding. By practicing those four steps, I can truly
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: say this has been hard, but it has been good.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: And C. S. Lewis, my favorite author, says, you know
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: that pain is a megaphone that God uses to rouse
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: a deaf world. And here's the thing, you and I
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: are hard of hearing. And I've actually gotten to the
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: point where, on one hand, I want this hard period
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: of my life to be over. But on the other hand,
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: I'm like, you know what, Lord, like, I'm kind of
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: scared if if this ends, Like I know how forced
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: I am to rely on you every day for my manna, emotionally,
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: spiritually and physically sometimes and it has been so sweet.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: I'm telling you there's another side that's from last week
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: and this week. Even though it's hard, it is good
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: and you opened this up. I think the beginning of
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: last week's episode for our good in his glory.
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: Yes, and I would add to that, not only is
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: it good, but it's worth it. Yes, it doesn't feel
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: like it in the moment, but when you can get
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: to that their hope filled side that you're talking about, John,
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: you can look back and go that journey was worth it.
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: If that journey brings us closer in our relationship with Jesus,
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: it's so worth it. If that journey gives us greater
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: compassion for the suffering of our families and our neighbors,
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: worth it. If that journey teaches us more about ourselves
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: and our sinful nature and our need for a savior,
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: worth it. Yes, So, John, thank you. Thank you for
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: sharing out of your most painful trials to give us
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: a biblically based, hope filled perspective.
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, thank you for having me.
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: Friends. We're going to include all the information about John,
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: his books, his resources, his podcast in the show notes
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: that you can find at doctor Michelle b dot com
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: and leave us a comment if you'd like John to
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: come back and share more. We want to know that too.
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: But what would be the greatest compliment is if you
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: would consider sharing these two episodes with a friend in need.
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: We want to share the hope with those who need
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: to hear it, so that would be the greatest blessing
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: of all. I look forward to being with you next
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: week for another episode of your Hope Field perspective, and
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: until them, it's my prayer for you that you have
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: a hope filled week.
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: Would you like a prescription for treating your worry, fear,
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: and anxiety for God's promised peace? Are you anxious? Fearful,
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: intend to worry? You are not lone. An estimated forty
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: million Americans suffer with anxiety. But America isn't the only
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: country affected. It is rampant in every country, in every age.
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: What are our worries? Our children, jobs, homes, help, and
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: finances to name a few. Our fears are fed by
• 50:46
  Speaker 3: the news and social media, so that so many of
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: us are suffering with worry, fear, and anxiety more than
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: ever before. We even fear missing out on what others have,
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: and that leads to anxiety. Do we need to rid
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: ourselves of the sources of anxiety? Not possible, but we
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: do need to recognize that anxiety originates from a spiritual influence.
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: When we do, then we can use the weapons of power, love,
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: and a sound mind to fight back and live in
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: God's Peace. Doctor Michelle Bankson's newly released book, Breaking Anxiety
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: Script how to Reclaim the Peace God promises. Using biblical insights,
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: personal anecdotes, and practical applications, she will help us identify
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: where in our everyday life fear lurks, wory creeps, and
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: anxiety seeks. Learn how to apply what God says about worry,
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: fear and anxiety, and follow a biblically based prescription for
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: reclaiming our power living in His perfect love using our
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: sound mind to break anxiety script and find peace. Doctor
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: Michelle shares her own story of emerging in the battle
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: with anxiety, as well as the stories of others. She
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: reminds us of our identity as a follower of Christ
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: and of the peace He promised us in spite of everything. Also,
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: she provides tools to cope with the crushing emotional burden
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: of anxiety now, and more importantly, she shows us how
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: to reclaim God's peace as a way of life that
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: we can break anxiety's grip. Listen to what doctor Saundra
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: Dolphin Smith had to say about breaking anxiety's grip. Life
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: is filled with changes which keep many in a constant
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: state of Anxiety. In Breaking Anxiety's Grip, Doctor Michelle Bankson
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: speaks intimately about her personal experience with fear and practically
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: on how to replace it with the truth of God's word.
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: Through an engaging use of scripture and powerful use of storytelling,
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: Michelle invites us to exchange our persistent words with blasting peace.
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: If you struggle with trusting God in the middle of
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: challenging times, this book is for you. You can order
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: your copy of Breaking Anxiety's Grip from any major book
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: retailer or her website at doctor michelleb dot com. And
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: while you're at it, how about picking up a copy
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: for a friend and loved one. You can pursue freedom
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: from worry, fear, and anxiety together. Thank you for joining
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: doctor Bankson to your hope build perspective. We hope you
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: are encouraged by her authenticity, vulnerability, and biblical truths. If
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: you enjoy today's conversation, when you take a moment right now,
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: open up your podcast app and look for the subscribe
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: button right next to our podcast profile image. We think
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: this podcast is best enjoyed with friends, so tell a
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: friend and click share in your podcast app and send
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: a friend our link to share hope with them. If
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: you have a comment, question, or suggest a topic for
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: a future show, reach out to our staff at info
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: at Hope Prevails dot org.
• 53:41
  Speaker 4: For additional resources. Information about doctor Bankson's books where free downloads,
• 53:46
  Speaker 4: or to contact her to speak at your next event,
• 53:50
  Speaker 4: please visit doctor michelbe dot com. Until next time, May
• 53:54
  Speaker 4: you have a hope filled week.
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: To take just a second to thank the team at
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: Life Audio for their partnership with us on this podcast.
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: If you go to lifeaudio dot com, you'll find dozens
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: of other faith centered podcasts in their network. They've got
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more.